Email Delivery Rules Checklist
Table of Contents
To whom do you send your newsletter?
If you care about your subscribers and your reputation, send messages only to those people who really want to read it.
An opt-in email list will solve unwanted email problems 90% of the time because your message is unlikely to be marked as SPAM.
If you offer your site visitors a chance to subscribe to your newsletter, make sure it is a confirmed subscription.
Review your ‘From’ and ‘Subject’ fields
The ‘From’ field should contain your company’s me and/or the title of your newsletter
This helps subscribers to recognize your messages immediately.
Upon receiving your message, the reader should be able to answer, “Yes” to the question, “Do I know who this is from?”
Likewise, your ‘Subject’ field must include an attractive le
Choosing the right ‘Subject’ line is really important because it often determines whether ur messages are opened or not.
Control your message content
Make sure that all of your emails include current contact formation, including phone numbers, email addresses and even your physical address.
Heck to see if any words in your subject line or message text trigger SPAM filters.
You can e a list of the most popular SPAM triggers by Mequoda.
In addition, Lyris offers a free service to check your message content for SPAM triggers.
Nowadays, ISPs use smart SPAM tering systems, so you shouldn’t avoid every potential SPAM content word if it is an portant part of your message.
Though their usage can add SPAM signals to your email, if ur message does not score a critical number of such SPAM signals, your email likely won’t filtered.
Don’t be afraid to use a few common SPAM triggering words if your message will ally benefit from them.
Use only absolutely necessary graphics in your message
Spammers and legitimate ail marketers alike use loaded images as a metric – to check valid email accounts and lculate open rates.
As a result, email programs and web-based services don’t download ages by default.
This means your readers won’t see your images unless they click on an tion to “display images” in your message.
While you shouldn’t overload your message with ages, if you insert some relevant text into the ‘alt’ attribute of the image, there’s a chance at it will be downloaded by potential readers and your newsletter will be read.
Do not attach files to your message
Most savvy Internet users will consider files sent via email too suspicious to open.
A better idea is to use a Web link (be sure to check its ailability before you send your message!)
Deliver a perfect user experience with your newsletter
Make sure your newsletter layout rendered perfectly by all important Web-based email service providers and email clients.
To ensure compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act
Your newsletter must be “opt-out
” In her words, be sure to include a valid ‘unsubscribe’ link in your message.
Your unsubscribe requests should be honored immediately.
What’s more, consider making your unsubscribe look more like a landing page.
Subscribe to feedback loop services with all important email providers, such as Yahoo!, OAOL, MS HotMail/Live, Comcast and others.
Take care to process any abuse emails regularly and quickly.
Maintenance
Maintain your subscriber list to keep your unknown user rates down.
Regularly remove un-deliverable addresses that bounce because ISPs and ESPs track bounce rates and may list your IP if you repeatedly attempt to deliver messages to closed or non-existing ubscriber mailboxes.
Testing Delivery
Be sure to test message delivery from your domain with all the major Email Service Providers (ESPs).
Testing deliverability is easy
Create test emails and send your messages to them. You’ll see at once if your messages end up in SPAM folders.
If you find an issue, try to solve it.
Check to see if your domain is present on any known blacklists that ISPs use
If you’ve been blacklisted, get in touch with the company that maintains the blacklist and follow its structions to be removed.
Another way to avoid blacklisting status is to contract with an mail reputation service in order to add your IP addresses to various trusted lists.
Our experience has taught us that subscribing to any of the above reputation services makes sense only if you are really a bulk email sender.
Otherwise, adhering to the other smart email practices described here should be enough to ensure you maintain email
Download or Print this Email Delivery Rules Checklist
Get a printable version of this checklist in your preferred format: PDF, Word, Excel, or print directly from your browser.
Presented by:
Jason Conn
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Who it's for
This Email Delivery Rules Checklist is for teams that want consistent execution, less rework, and clear ownership.
- Standardize quality - run the same Email Delivery Rules steps every time, regardless of who executes
- Save time - reuse a proven Email Delivery Rules workflow instead of rebuilding processes from scratch
- Improve accountability - assign owners and see what's done vs. what's pending
- Onboard faster - use the Email Delivery Rules checklist as the SOP and training guide
- Coordinate across roles - handoffs are clear and everyone works from the same source of truth
How to use it
How to use this Email Delivery Rules Checklist:
- Start by saving it - save as a Template if you'll reuse it, or as a Checklist if it's a one-off project.
- Customize it once for your workflow - remove what doesn't apply and add your team-specific steps.
- Assign ownership and execute - set owners/due dates where needed and track completion as work happens.
- Reuse without rebuilding - when Email Delivery Rules comes up again, start from your saved version and run it with clear ownership.